On July 15, Dr. Zhuoxiang Ren, a professor at the University Pierre and Marie Curie (University Paris VI) in France and Professor at the Institute of Microelectronics in Chinese Academy of Science, brought EE students his presentation: Multiphysics modeling, challenges and opportunities in microelectronic engineering. According to Prof Ren, the IC technology trend continued toward ultra miniaturization and heterogeneous integration. Today’s ultra compact devices and integrated systems involved more and more multiphysics interactions which needed to be considered in the very early stage of design and verification cycle. The multiphysics modeling became essential in the modern micro and nano electronic engineering. Prof Ren gave a brief overview of muliphysics modeling methodologies, and summarized some application needs in post-Moore era micro and nano electronic technologies, including 3D nano devices such as the FinFET transistors, 3D IC chip integration using through silicon vias, beyond CMOS devices and micro electromechanical systems.

Prof Ren graduated from Huazhong University of Science and Technology in 1982 and received his PhD from the Insititut Polytechnique de Toulouse in France in 1986. After his PhD, he was, respectively, an assistant professor at the Ecole Normale Superieure de Cahcan and a senior researcher at the Centre Nationale de Recherche Scientifique in France. In 1998, he was a visiting professor at the University of Akron in USA. After then, he worked at various EDA companies, including Ansoft Corporation, Cadence Design Systems Inc., Mentor Graphics Corporation, and served as a staff engineer, a principal engineer, respectively, until 2010. He is currently head of research team on micro and nano electronics at the laboratory of electronics and electromagnetism in University of Paris VI.

Prof. Ren has many years of research experiences on numerical modeling of electromagnetic systems and development of EDA tools. He has published over 150 journal and refereed international conference papers, and is a co-author of two book chapters. He has been awarded a Bronze Medal of CNRS in France in 1996. His research interests include numerical methods for the computation of electromagnetic fields, modeling and simulation of multi-scale and multi-physics problems in micro and nano electronic and electromechanical devices and systems.